Divided
by Vanessa S. Quest
Summary: Sometimes things aren't as they appear, upon closer examination they aren't as strange as you thought. Other times they're far worse than conceivable, really though who'd have thought something could go this wrong just because Hadji was acting funny?
1. Part 1

Divided part 1

by Vanessa S. Quest

Hadji sniggered, walking backwards he turned a corner, once passed a small explosion rocked through that portion of the hallway much to the teen's enjoyment, he spun around to start a sprint as an irate red haired girl followed.

"HADJI!" She screamed letting her voice trill, he merely offered his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Don't…"

Hadji let a dark smile turn over his lips.

"Hadji- don't… don't say it!"

Hadji smiled outright, he flicked his wrists up as he said, "Say what? Sim Sim Sala bim…!" Jessie rose from the floor, looking very cranky for the wear.

As she brooded, midair, Hadji let the levitation drop her back on the ground, graciously, not even with a thump! "You know Jessie, you really should lighten up." Laughing Hadji went on his way to the kitchen for a snack.

She glared coldly. "And you know Hadji, you should ask Pasha to find you a personality."

Dr. Quest looked back and forth between the bickering pair but decided ignorance was blissful, especially so long as the explosions indoors kept to a minimal, with today's tally being one, it was looking to be a good day.

"Kids, do you want to help out in the lab?"

Jessie's eyes lit up while Hadji continued to chastise the girl with his very presence. "Really? We can?" Light shone behind her as if she had instantly ascended to the heavens in the grace of Dr. Quest and the notion that she could play in his lab- by play she meant working fully scientifically and NOT playing god, really. She had no urge to… oh… get Hadji back with some local dyes from Pygmy country, really. That was located on the third shelf from the top in the farthest corner back of the stock room, she knew that to avoid it. Yup. Not a cruel thing on her sweet little mind.

"Of course. Are you both game?"

They nodded happily. Once Dr. Quest's back faded into the kitchen Jessie let out a low but well measured, "I will destroy you."

Hadji laughed at her expense, "You have a smudge." He mentioned while demonstrating with a flick of his wrist, sending a bottle of open jelly down her shirtsleeve.

"HADJI!" Growling she narrowed her eyes, "Be smart and levitate the knives OUT of my reach." She stormed off back to her room to get dressed for the lab, or so she would tell Dr. Quest when he asked why she was now wearing something else.

Inside the lighthouse Dr. Quest leaned over the computer panel as he set up his prototype of his Quantum Regulator, he had written a theory on other dimensions taking up a different frequency of energy possibly overlapping their own, he even let a few colleagues suppose it to explain certain 'ghost' phenomena though that was in limited cases and around highly magnetic areas. All things considered there was so much potential inside that concept that he had to build a device to see if he could actively measure it, he was intrigued, his thirst for knowledge whetted and he was not the sort of man to let things that peaked his interest go understudied.

Dr. Quest rarely put 100 into just one project but he had sunk himself into this project since finding an application to the theory he had developed four years back. He had put the project on hold after the… incident… by time he was able to go through all his old notes the papers jumped at him begging for his sole attention to the one project. Race would have a paroxysm if he knew this was Benton's new project, but he couldn't help himself, it was simply too fascinating even neglecting the possible implications.

Looking over his office section of lab he spotted his favorite arm chair and lowered table, normally he'd find himself lounging about reading a case study or field research of colleagues to submit a critique to some trendy science magazine, he also spotted a familiar photograph, as per tradition, and meandered towards it ready to collapse into his chair in meditations.

His hands quickly found what his eyes had and gathered up the image looking at the family photo, he smiled warmly, Jessie stood in the center fixed in a hybrid of school uniform and street clothes, her bootleg blue jeans, an ashy long-sleeve turtleneck and her unbuttoned short-sleeved summer uniform and hiking boots, a baseball cap fisted as she laughed at Jonny to her side as he was giving his other son Hadji a rather dirty look. Hadji smiled innocently even with his hand still tracing mud, he was forced into wearing a new wool sweater, a sharp sweater as he recalled that still served the teen as a portion of wardrobe, gray with a red vertical stripe down the center between the left shoulder and neck opening, two inches thick, khaki dress pants and sneakers with more telltale mud. Race stood at the edge very upset to have a wet handprint of an irate blond down his new shirt's front, and a trail of mud from the remainder of the boy's impression. At the slight left, the entire scene came unfolded as Jonny was regaining his balance, death-glare fixed at the Hindi, traces of dryness on parts of his faded black denim pants, his black three-quarter mock turtle neck was stuck to his body and his matching black denim jacket fixed itself to his elbows and up, soaked with spots of mud from a mud-ball impact. So it wasn't a traditional family photo, it was a real one though, one of his favorite pictures, they had the brilliant idea of going on a hike through the woods and that was the chaos that followed.

He sighed inwardly then put the photo down, he had to prepare for the experiment.

Jessie knocked on the outermost door to the lab, a good practice for all things considered. Dr. Quest typically answered hastily if he was working with anything dangerous that could, oh, say, rip you limb from limb and render you dead with a press of a button… or more importantly without a press of the button which tended to be the safety-control device.

"Come on in, everything's ready to go."


	2. Part 2

Divided part 2

by Vanessa S. Quest

Jonny looked at Jessie and shrugged. "Why would you knock? You realize that's boring don't you?" He laughed. "It's not like he's working on anything dangerous if he said we could watch."

"Wrong, Jonny, he said we could help, well, Hadji and I at least. You just get to watch and not break things."

"Pretty shiny things." Jonny added with a mischievous glance.

"I swear I don't know how I put up with you." Jessie glared at Hadji. "And you- if you even start siding with him this morning you're up a shit creek."

Hadji chortled and fixed his hair. "I always behave." He said slightly indignantly. He straightened the collar to his white cotton button-down t-shirt and made sure his tang top was properly tucked in, his light blue jeans hugged in all the right places and his black boots were particularly polished.

"Why are you dressed up?" She said rolling her eyes, slightly angry that she had dressed down for the occasion as a precaution for stains.

"Dressed up? I happen to be dressing down to work in the laboratory, steel-toed boots for safety, cotton fabrics that can easily be extinguished and cleaned if either become necessary in the next five hours, I just have a better fashion sense than you. Do not be jealous."

"She hates us cause we're beautiful." Jonny nodded to Hadji's sentiments before both brothers laughed.

The trio walked inside the lab, standing to face the massive set of computers. Jonny brushed his hand over the Ricardo chair as he moved past the Questworld set up and reached the stairwell. Walking down a floor he came to equipment mimicking the vast Questworld display. "This the spot dad?"

Dr. Quest gave an affirmation from under some panels, connecting some wires to a new house of fuses. "Yes, the monitors should be able to display what's on the opposite frequency with a relay, like an inverse webcam. If I can confirm there's another dimension I'll send a droid over to collect some data."

"Dad, what's the purpose of this though? How're you going to prove anything happened?"

Dr. Quest flitted his hair as he slid out from under the panel, "Simple, the droid will be set to record any and all fluctuations in frequency and as it should pass a magnetic barrier, if this works there will be a magnetic trace that should be highly abnormal and chances are concentrated. If that happens, we'll take a trip to somewhere with strong magnetic pulls. Maybe the arctic for Aura Borealis, or the Dakotas."

Jonny nodded in understanding. "What's your hypothesis anyways?"

"You mean besides whether these dimensions are even there?"

He rolled his eyes, "Well obviously if they are there you think they're either the exact same save for lingering magnetic traces or you think they're different. If you think they're different… you aren't doing this as some other Project Rachel are you?"

Benton's eyes hardened for a moment, trying to ignore the slight stabbing feeling his heart felt with that worthy mistake.

"Dad, is this some other way to bring her back, I deserve to know about it up front. The last time it almost got me killed." He added inwardly, 'and near gave me a mental breakdown.'

"It's not another Project Rachel, son, what I had done was wrong, time is not something to be meddled with, it's something that shouldn't be tampered with and I knew that even then. I can't say that about dimensions though, this is like exploring space the only difference is this space is folded over itself. And no one will be put in harm's way, we will only use the druids."

Jonny bowed his head, "Sorry, I didn't mean to question you like that dad…" his eyes slated gray before returning to their normal cheery tone.

Jessie and Hadji plopped the drone at the edge of the stairs after hauling it down the level. "Dr. Quest, we made the final diagnostic, everything is in check with your report, all systems are operational and the equipment is reading correctly. All is a go on our end."

Dr. Quest smiled and tapped on the casing to the console, "Alright then." He set up the dials. "Jonny, do you want to make a manual recording of the monitors in case the system crashes? The camcorder is set up, all it needs is an eye to keep it in focus."

Jonny shirked off a shrug. "Why not, my artistic eye can capture the beauty of any moment, even the boring documentary this will no doubt turn into once Discover hears about your latest work." He meandered to the camera, that was just for show, he was excited, hell he was excited when his photos for wildlife were featured in Discover for a photo essay about Wild Life Preserves.

"Alright, IRIS, cut of power to the upper floors." He turned a dial sending the energy to the monitor allowing it to flux in time with the alternating magnetic signature. He counted on the gage as the magnetic field folded over switching poles and raising a decibel. The monitor flickered with light indicating a faint signature. He raised the power letting the magnetic resonate pool, an image came to focus behind Jonny's camera.

"Hey dad I'm getting an image, it looks like your lab." Dr. Quest nodded.

"Alright, then let's stabilize the link." He pressed a set of dials. "Jessie, man the control, Hadji keep the read out."

Jessie scoffed as she grabbed the remote, "Ha! In your face! I've got the mad remote-control-skills!" She moved the RV vehicle through the monitor, using a rope to anchor it.

Jonny gave his dad a strange look, "Dad are you sure that's a good idea?"

Hadji looked at Jonny the moment he said that, the charts started to shift, "Jonny…?"

"Dad I think you should pull that back and think of a different tactic. The droid needs radio signals if you're using remotes and there's no way raising the gigs will balance this off… if anything it might…"

"Dr. Quest!" Hadji mentioned as the chart spiked more.

"Jessie turn it back!" Jonny looked through, something was behind his eyes, fear, dread, a disembodied feeling… he could see the others but something was wrong. "JESSIE PULL IT BACK!"

"DR. QUEST! The charts are going wild!"

"It won't turn off, I can't!"

Jonny caught eyes with Hadji, "Hadji- what's happening with the charts?"

"IRIS cut the power." Dr. Quest chimed, when no response came he gave a dangerous look, "IRIS status!"

"Dad the signal's jammed, it's the radio-waves she can't recognize your voice, there's way too much distortion." He looked at the rope, "And I think I know how to stop it." He grabbed the rope to the droid, pulling at it.

"Jonny what are you doing!" Dr. Quest near swore.

"If we leave it there it won't shut down, it's throwing off the regulators and the voice-controls… it has to go!" He pulled it back with a huff. "Check the readings, it's out of the safety zone, it has to be pulled out!"

Hadji gave Dr. Quest a mortified look. "Jonny… get away from it! Jonny-"

A flash of light moved through before the droid, rope and Jonny all disappeared. The signal flattened, the fuse blown.

"JONNY!" Hadji glared at the machine, "Dr. Quest he's gone!"

Dr. Quest froze, face gawking before he could compose himself, "IRIS locate Jonny Quest, now!"

IRIS made a set of several beeping sounds before replying, "Location locked, Jonathon Quest is currently in the lighthouse laboratory, Sub Level 1."

Dr. Quest's eyes went wide as he scanned the room. "IRIS scan the room, locate all life signs."

"Scan complete, there are currently three lifeforms present."

Hadji looked back and forth between Dr. Quest and the source of the voice, "IRIS scan for Jonny's vitals and locate it."


	3. Part 3

Divided part 3

by Vanessa S. Quest

"I FOUND HIM!"

The blond rubbed his eyes holding his head. "What… happened?" He looked up from the ground.

Hadji and Jessie rushed towards him, "Dr. Quest! Dr. Quest!"

Dr. Quest looked at the figure on the ground, "Jonny! Are you all right? Jonny?" He moved the boy from the ground, quickly taking his vitals.

"Jessie, get Race!" Hadji barked. "I can't… believe it- the portal, what did it do? How…?"

The stunned boy blinked for a few moments. "…Hadj… what happened?" He looked at the pale form of his father, "…dad? I'm alright, really."

After a few awkward moments Race appeared at the top of the steps. "What's with all the commotion?"

Dr. Quest took a calm breath in. "Race, help Jonny to his room."

Race gave the man a daft look, "Now doc, what are you going on about? You know he doesn't need help going back to his room… he's never…"

Steel blue eyes met with sapphire. "What the hell did you do Doc?" Jonny quickly looked around, did something happen to him? Was he really hurt and just in too much shock…?

"Where's the droid?" He asked now scanning the room. Dr. Quest locked eyes with the elder boy. Hadji pulled up the decimated robot.

"Do you mean this? The magnetic wave wrecked it and crashed the system. Is that what happened to you?"

More bewilderment came in floods as Jonny looked at Hadji, "Yeah I think so, I guess I got caught up in it and got knocked out?" He looked at his dad hoping for a scientific explanation to either belittle his or concur, when he found his dad still silent, "Dad, I'm okay, really… you're starting to make me nervous. Say something."

The man put his hand to his face. "Oh, right. It is possible, the entire system shut down right before we found you. IRIS scanned the room and found your vitals, but she was having a hard time locating your exact placement because of magnetic signatures interfering with her scanners, you had a strong trace from the portal most likely."

Hadji glared at Dr. Quest. Was that all the explanation he was going to give him? "Jonny do you know where you are? The date? Um, do you still like to swim?"

Jonny laughed, "So I DID hit my head… Yes I know, it's Saturday, we're in the lab, and why would I NOT like to swim? Um? Since when do you let your perfect English slip up with idioms?" He rolled his eyes. "You and Jessie are hanging out too much, and don't you dare pin that on me Jessie- he's been living with ME for over six years and he never said 'um' unless it was a direct quote."

"…I… didn't say I would…" Jessie said in shock.

Jonny sat upright slightly indignantly as he forced himself to stand from the awkward position with a flip, as no one was offering him a hand he continued to look about. Why were they so shocked? "What? Is my leprosy showing or something? You're all being weird, is my hair messed up? Is there something on my face… tell me?"

Hadji seemed to be the first to get his wits back, even beating Race for timing. "Jonny let me take you back to your room to straighten up. You remember where everything is I assume…"

Jonny blinked, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"N… Nothing, son, we're just a little stunned still." Dr. Quest interjected before giving Hadji a very explanatory look. The Indian teen merely choked back an unuttered 'understood sir.'

Back in the Compound Jonny opened the door to his room. "What the hell? What happened to my room Hadji!" He looked under his bed, tossing open the closet, flipping through the shelves and drawers. "I can't find anything with my room like this! Did Mrs. Evans clean it or something while we were in the lab!" He came to the closet again, halting when his eye caught onto a certain sweater. "This isn't even mine! She's mixing up OUR laundry now… what the hell…" He rolled his eyes tossing the shirt to Hadji before the boy could complain about 'looking for that' or something of the like.

"Jonny… what are you doing? That's yours."

Jonny turned back to look at Hadji, "Say what?"

"That's yours, it's not my sweater, I have one like it, but that isn't mine."

"…You… you're speaking weird. No, normal. You're speaking normally, but that's not how you talk… what happened to your perfect syntax, really? You're using interjections, abbreviations… And when did you two get changed?"

Hadji looked back at the door, confirming it shut he clamped a hand over Jonny's mouth and pushed him onto the bed. "What do you remember?"

The blond gave Hadji a frazzled look. "What the hell are you doing!"

"WHAT do you REMEMBER!" Hadji demanded a bit more heated.

"About WHAT! The sweater! Today? What the hell do you mean!"

"JONNY YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!" Hadji froze and turned his head to the side. "Dad said you ran away, but we held a ceremony for you anyways when we couldn't find you. You shouldn't be here, you shouldn't be alive and I don't know how the hell you got here or how you just APPEARED but you … you're dead."

Jonny's arms fell to his side limply, mouth gaping. "Hadji… that's not a funny joke. I didn't hit my head anyways so you can't just trick me like that… and since when DO YOU try to tell jokes? Let alone practical jokes- you haven't done that since we were ten!"

Hadji rolled his eyes. "You never borrowed my clothes right?"

"Right…"

"And you don't remember this sweater?"

"…Again, right."

"Then how are you wearing it in that picture?" He tossed him the photo. "The machine dad had us working on was a magnetic portal into a different dimension, while we were warming it up we saw your image, you were looking through a camera, at the tripod you were rolling your left pointer to keep timing like you were rolling a drum stick over it. There was a power-surge then a brown out, the system crashed and wouldn't respond to any verbal commands, something started to come through the monitor- which isn't MADE for that, by the by. I popped open IRIS's control grid and tried to manually shut down the entire power grid, there was a large flash and the magnetism couldn't be contained, it knocked over a lot of stuff and Dr. Quest couldn't spot Jessie or I. He ran a vitals check and he found an extra thumb-print. By that I mean he found your signature. Once we found you… needless to say he was surprised. You aren't our Jonny are you?"

"…From what you're telling me, there's no way I can be, it makes sense… and there's no way in hell you'd have seen what I was doing with my hand from your vantage point… This… is weird."

"Very. Now get yourself straightened up and I'll be nice and warn you ahead of time, because you're kind of a stranger, the house is booby-trapped, both by IRIS and myself. I show no mercy, and Dr. Quest is off his fucking hinges."

"And Race? What about him? Why are Jessie and he still around? Does dad still work for the government?"

"You mean because Race would have been laid off when you were written off as dead, don't you? About that…"

Race knocked at the door. "Hey… kiddo… you there? Can I come in and talk with you for a bit?"

Hadji clamped his mouth shut. Looking around, "I'll tell you later." Opening the door Hadji walked out letting out one, "Sim-sim-sala-bim!" Jonny blinked daftly as he saw the destructive work of Hadji's magic as his drawers slammed shut with a loud thunk. He looked back to notice which drawer before glaring at the Hindi.

"Since when are you allowed to use magic in the house!" He swore, "That's it, if you think you can start with this I'm pulling out my tricks too." He caught Race's eyes. "Uh… hi Race."

After perhaps the most confusing half-hour of his life Jonny finally straightened up from being told he was a run-away come home if anyone asked to really being dead but Dr. Quest's mental state not ever fully recovering to the point of hearing it. Apparently he wasn't to be seen and they were to immediately find a way to send him back…

…Of course this was a given, what were they really going to tell him? "Oh, you aren't going back home ever, and you aren't allowed to leave the house because you're technically dead?" Seriously, everyone was talking down to him just because he was 'new' to the Quest experience when he was half of the damn thing.

The drawer Hadji slammed before was calling his attentions though. Hadji was trying to tell him something and he needed to know.


	4. Part 4

Divided part 4

by Vanessa S. Quest

Dr. Quest sifted through the machinery before finally realizing, "IRIS scan for trace magnetic signatures of the android." He gave Hadji and Jessie a knowing look, "With a simple application of physics we can find wherever the droid was thrown to finding Jonny… and the droid had a calibrating chamber to make up for any fluctuations in the magnetic signature to find it after sending it through to another dimension."

Hadji bowed his head in a solitude nod while Jessie bit her lip nervous to hear the AI's answer.

"Tracking signal traces the prototype to this location in frequency program 72b44l003°N."

Dr. Quest's eyes went large. "WHAT! It… made it through? …Then Jonny's…" He lowered his head then turned with a heated glare towards the fried equipment. "You kids get out, upstairs I have a journal with the receipts for all the parts I've ordered for this project. Start calling them and have them send me everything again - priority shipping, same-day and tell them to make sure it's functioning and I'll pay whatever the cost to get these parts ASAP it could be a matter of life and death."

Hadji looked over the scene once more, "Once they have been ordered I will return to assist in clean-up and reassembling the designs."

Dr. Quest nodded. "Jessie that means you need to tell Mrs. Evans to start making an all-nighter deluxe for three."

Jessie merely let out a clear, "all right," before leaving the lighthouse with Hadji to get everything together they'd need. Jessie froze at the top of the steps, turning to go back down them. "I'm getting the camera, we're watching what's on the film. He saw something."

Again, a completely silent but fully understood moment passed between the friends, after all they were strategists and a team, they could make these distributions and understood the importance of being able to on the fly.

Food ordered, parts put on fast-track and tape in the player, the pair again divided, "We'll work in shifts in the clean-up."

"I'll take round one, you two were clearing debris after the first shockwave." Jessie informed, "What are we going to do for a retrieval unit though? We don't even know if the drone made it through intact, or if Jonny was hurt or killed."

"Alright, I'll review the tape then, when we switch you review and then we'll collaborate to see if we concur or if either of us missed anything."

Jessie's back shrank as she disappeared towards the lighthouse.

Hadji pressed play, heart frozen as he saw a near mirror image to what had been their set-up. 'We should run a diagnostics report to see if we can create a communications link with the tracking device.' He continued to watch through the cracking image and heavy interference, he quickly decided to take the footage and upload it to his laptop to edit out the distortion.

He noted, with pen and paper, as his slightly altered form caught eye to the camera and lib something. With the best of his lip reading abilities the teenager caught on as much of the message as he could before repeating it again.

"Is that Jonny? No it can't be… he's dead." Hadji looked over the notepad again. "Oh this is not good."

Jessie came back into the room just as Hadji thrust his laptop at her. "Watch the time marker from 02:14:45.003 until 02:15:00.972 and tell me what he's saying."


	5. Part 5

There was a click as the door was locked, Jonny wasn't quite fond of being locked into the room, but he waited to hear Race's receding footsteps before bum-rushing the drawer. He had questions to answer, and he was sure what was inside the drawer would help clarify things. He spotted a small note with rather clear instructions underneath one of his old shirts. "Go to the gardening shack tonight at midnight, don't be seen? What the hell, Hadj?" He folded the note and put it into his pocket, aware that it would be a good idea to take the teen's advice.

--

Hadji and Jessie sat in the kitchen as Race debriefed them. "Both of you know what this means, I presume." The two nodded, "Really, and he started to calm down again." Race shook his head, "I don't want Dr. Quest interacting with him, I don't have to explain why, do I?"

"No sir." The two said in unison.

"Good, I'm going to talk to Benton. That invention doesn't seem so innocent as a pet-project…" He let out an annoyed sigh.

"Aren't you going to explain things to Jonny? It could be dangerous for him…"

"Absolutely not and neither of you are to say a word! You know that this is confidential, he's not from here, and he's not _our_ Jonny. We can't trust him with that sort of thing! As far as he's concerned, he's to stay in that room until we're ready to send him back."

"Right, so he's pretty much a prisoner?" Jessie asked, though the innocence to it seemed feigned.

"Prisoner nothing, that's protective custody and you know it." Race shook his head, "Really I can't tell what Benton's thinking, but I have to get in touch with Korvin now. I'm heading to town, I need you two to keep an eye out to make sure those two keep apart."

Hadji nodded, "Well, duh. I don't want to see a repeat of…" He swallowed, "I don't want to put any unnecessary strain on dad."

"Good boy." Race ran his fingers through his hair, "Jess, you babysit Dr. Quest, and be careful. You know how he gets when he's …giddy… like that."

"Yes sir."

--

Jonny spotted Race's sports car pulling out of the garage before gunning it down the long driveway before he decided he had played nice long enough. He wasn't going to wait until midnight… Looking through the drawers he spotted something of use for disabling the locking-mechanism and approached the door. He seriously wondered why this world's Jonny actually had lock-pick equipment, he thought he'd find a screwdriver from a model set, but to actually have lock-picks, really now?

He put his hand on the door to turn it a quarter turn and thus free up the lock-surface, instead he found the door to have some give, he tapped the handle before pulling it open to spot Hadji.

"Hadji?"

The teen entered the room and locked the door from the inside.

"You, you don't leave this room without me unless you plan on going out the window. You got me?"

"…Uh, no actually, I have no idea what you mean by that. Wait you mean I'm seriously being kept captive here?"

Hadji nodded, "Yes and no. What I'm about to tell you, I'm not telling you, you understand?"

"Top secret stuff? Why are you acting like this is a spy-movie? Man just get on with it, bro."

"Not until you swear confidentiality. I know you won't lie if you swear it on your mom."

"Damn, you're serious… what do you mean though? You mean I can't say anything in this world or in my world?"

"I don't give a damn about your world right now, you can't let dad, Jessie or Race know anything that I'm about to tell you, and you can't tell anyone on this Earth either, you get me?"

Jonny nodded. "Alright, what is this all about, Hadji?"

"…You can't be near dad. You don't want to even know why."

Jonny's eyebrow quirked, "What the… wait, I do, I do want to know why."

Hadji rubbed his forehead, "Officially, Jonny ran away and was presumed dead. After that, people realized dad …cracked. He… he wasn't the same after that. In fact, he's kept here more than he just chooses to stay here. Race wasn't fired after you died because he was assigned to keep watch on dad. He might have lost it, but, well… he's still a genius with a lot to give back to the world, you know?"

"…So you mean he's crazy?"

Hadji shook his head, "No, absolutely not… if you like staying alive."

Jonny's eyes went wide, "Did you just threaten me?"

"I think Jessie's with him in the lab. Come on, I'll show you the grounds. You really should see the garden."

He wasn't quite sure how to take that kind of response.

"We're heading out through the window, the door's locked, so we'll also head back in through this way. We can't exactly go there when Race or dad is around, and Jessie… well, it's better if we keep that from her."

Swallowing, "Alright, but first, I see the flash bombs in your pocket, those aren't for me are they?"

Hadji shook his head, "Surprisingly not. Heh, I'm impressed you spotted them, Jess never spots them 'til it's too late. I mean it when I say keep away from dad, though. Let him keep working on the portal so you can get home, unless you've become attached to here that is."

"Well, I have to say, it's fun to see this side of Hadji again, oh, I mean… well, my Hadji isn't anything like this, he's all 'do not abuse power' this and 'you must not be irresponsible, brother' that… heh, he lost his sense of humor completely."

"This is a bit of a defense mechanism." Hadji slid the rope-latter from the window before climbing down and steadying it for Jonny to climb down.

"Defense mechanism you say?"

Hadji smiled sadly, "Come with me to the garden, you'll figure it out."

Jonny paused at the entrance to the garden, on the opposite side of the compound from the lab.

"Your world's Jonny, did he really run away? Or did he join up with terrorists or something? I mean, that sounds so unlike me… but, I mean… that could make sense as to why Race has to keep Dr. Quest on lock-down here, to prevent him from switching sides…"

"You're wrong. Jonny was such a great person, and really fun… no, go in the gardening shed, brace yourself." Pushing the door open, Hadji waited for Jonny to enter.

"Brace myself? For what?" Jonny said as he walked through the door. Hadji walked in behind him. Jonny's eyes shrank back into their whites, "Oh my g… who… what… how?!"

Hadji bowed his head, "This is why you can't go near dad. Our world's Jonny isn't going to walk around town ever again, you doing so would make things very… difficult for Race to explain away."

Jonny's hand clamped to his mouth as he dry-heaved.

"In this world, I was already a part of the family before your mom left, but not by much time. She ran off with another man. I noticed how dad would get angry more easily, especially if things became more serious in tone. He took it out on you… well, on Jonny the worst. One day she called, she said she wanted to take you from him, and you seemed okay with the idea. Race wasn't sure if he could let it be authorized. Dad threatened to stop producing if he lost Jonny to her, so Race said that Jonny had to 'run away' in order for Rachel not to get custody."

Jonny slammed his back against the wall, sliding down it with his hand still clamped to his mouth.

"Of course, Jonny wanted to go, and one day dad took things way too far. Jonny said something very stupid for the given situation, he said, 'I want to go live with mom, I can't stand it here anymore, when you do this you aren't my dad, you're a monster!' I had heard the argument from my room and came to see it, hoping to break it up before it would get too bad."

"…Too bad…?" Jonny pointed to the decomposing body, "…I'd say you were a little late!"

"I was. Once Jonny said that, there was nothing I could do to calm dad down. He slammed Jonny to the wall and was choking him one-handed, Race came in and pulled him off, after that Jonny stayed in his room, the locks were really a safety mechanism."

"…Then why is he dead if he survived that?!"

"Because one day he miscalculated his window of opportunity, he went to use the phone to call Rachel and tell her she had to get him out of there, dad was supposed to be out on business, Race had a meeting and Jessie and I were in school. When I got home, I found your body, he had the bags around you already. He said you fell down the stairs, but with the phone cord wrapped around the throat it was a bit hard to believe. Of course, when Race got there, he went into damage control mode. He isn't your ally. He'll do anything to keep dad productive, it isn't that he doesn't feel guilty about it all, but he gave us the checks-and-balances speech, so there really wasn't anything we could say. He wasn't going to let Jonny's body be found and risk dad's productivity. His job is pretty much to keep him productive and away from society."

Jonny's hand shook as it approached the body before him, Hadji smacked the hand down. "W… Why didn't they bury me… him… though? You said they held a ceremony, why not later?!"

"Two reasons, because your mom would be suspicious of it, and dad comes to check on the body to make sure he really doesn't try to run away. He's completely insane, you can't go near him alone. Even if you say nothing wrong, he could snap and do this to you again, he doesn't hold qualms about it. The only person he's ever been violent against was you, so no one would have suspected it as more that Jonny really running away… but, yeah. You understand now, right?"

Swallowing hard, Jonny looked at Hadji, "Right, so this is where we go back to the compound, I pretend everything's normal now that I've been scarred slightly-more for life, and pray he actually fixes that machine instead of set up a line of lifeless-Jonny-plants."

Hadji nodded, "Frankly, I think he might have actually wanted to make the device for that purpose, well it is a possibility at least."

"…And this, this is all for the sake of science that he can get away with murder?!"

Hadji hung his head, "He cured two types of cancer, did you know? He developed a drug from the extracts of several rare plants in the Amazon, and found a way to stop a specific mutation, of the SR433 gene, it cured hundreds of people so far, he also made a device that filters water from parasitic worms that costs under five dollars and lasts for seven years, do you know how relevant these this are around 

the world? The government well, their stance is that you weren't worth it to keep that happy and productive. I disagree, but there isn't really anything I can say to change things, I can only keep close and hope he doesn't do anything more."

"…I… I just can't believe any of this, this is all so much."

"And your dad, on your earth… he isn't like this at all, is he?"

Jonny shook his head, "No, he's never so much as smacked me on the up-side of my head for crashing Questworld the day before a major teleconference."

Hadji smiled, "Well, I'm very glad. I hope we can get you back to that world soon."

"…Do you really think he'll actually let me leave though, if he's really… if he really is that crazy? I mean, come to think of it, he sent me to my room as if I belong here."

"That is what I'm hoping to prevent, I don't feel like taking care of a human garden."

Jonny nodded, "Uh, I know my voice might not sound the most flattering, but… thanks Hadj, I'm glad you didn't try to hide this from me."

"I wouldn't forgive myself if you died again because I didn't stop it somehow. Now, please make sure to keep away from him."

"Yeah, so let's go back before anyone comes a-knocking."

"Right."

The two left the garden, Hadji put the pad-lock back on the garden shed's door before they went. Hadji climbed the rope ladder first, helping Jonny back through the window, after all, he did have a lot of experience sneaking in and out of the house.

To Be Continued.


End file.
